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Cisco XDR vs Rapid7 InsightIDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Net...
Sponsored
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (4th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Ransomware Protection (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Cisco XDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rapid7 InsightIDR
Ranking in Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (23rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (11th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (32nd), Threat Deception Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Extended Detection and Response (XDR) category, the mindshare of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is 4.8%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco XDR is 1.5%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightIDR is 2.5%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks4.8%
Cisco XDR1.5%
Rapid7 InsightIDR2.5%
Other91.2%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

ABHISHEK_SINGH - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Process Expert at A.P. Moller - Maersk
Gained full visibility and streamlined threat detection through behavior-based insights and AI integration
Initially, we got to have a lot of false positives when we onboarded, but nowadays it's quite smooth. We have fine-tuned our security policies and allowed different levels of policies to get rid of those false positives. Currently, we are getting a fairly good amount of incidents that are not false positives or benign, but actionable items. The process is streamlined. In the initial days, the operations used to get involved in a lot of benign and other activities, but now the process is streamlined. We are leveraging the auto-detection and remediation plans. The operations teams are now more involved in other business roles as well, not just looking into the logs and fetching out what's happening there. They have fixed a lot of things. Initially, they didn't have IAC code drift detection, cloud posture management, or security posture management, but they have those now. They purchased different vendors and did a merger with that. They have now Prisma Cloud that gets integrated and now they are working with Cortex Cloud. Everything that was negative has now been addressed, and the product altogether looks to be in a very better and mature shape now. Currently, it's more or less detecting the workloads with AI-based best practices. Since most organizations are consuming AI agents and other things, we are looking forward to seeing what other feature enhancements Palo Alto can support in that.
Fred Parks - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Consultant at W.C. Bradley Co.
Centralized visibility has transformed incident investigations and now cuts response time dramatically
Workflows could definitely be easier to work with. Workflows are automated tasks that can be kicked off inside of a playbook. When someone is responding to something, they can click a button and it will perform automated tasks for them inside of these other products. The product can actually control the behavior of a firewall and you can write a rule in a firewall from Cisco XDR without having to go into the firewall software. However, if it is not a native workflow automation, it is very difficult to create your own. It is not intuitive and you almost have to be a developer and get really good with the API. This could definitely be improved on, particularly the custom workflow automation. Another thing that could be improved is Cisco documenting how it makes decisions, because there are certain factors or criteria that it uses from the source products. Cisco XDR gets all of its data from the integrations, so if you do not integrate anything, it is not going to do anything. Sometimes in these integration products, such as Secure Network Analytics or Cisco Security Exposure, they could be generating some type of alert and you do not necessarily see that in Cisco XDR. This is because it knows, maybe because of these other products, it is not really a big deal and is not big enough to raise an incident. However, I do not think Cisco does a great job in explaining what those rules are, such as why this happens and how this happens. This can cause some questions and some concern. I think it is doing the right thing, but I think it would be better if they had a rule set to say, based on this data, this is how the product actually works.
Prajwal Chougale - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC L2 Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Centralized threat hunting has improved alert accuracy and simplifies incident investigations
I would say there are two areas for improvement: the reporting dashboard that provides insights or reports weekly or monthly lacks detailed information about how logs are being ingested. While the details are there, they could be more concise and easier to understand for any level of authority. The second area is alert tuning; compared to Microsoft Sentinel, Rapid7 InsightIDR provides fewer alerts with more static alert functionality and lacks dynamic alerting exposures. There could be improvements to learn from past alert activities for more dynamic alert configurations. These two areas are the main areas for improvement; everything else is good.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Threat identification and detection are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The most valuable features are incident creation, policy-based protection, IP whitelisting, and device encryption. These are beneficial for endpoint and server security."
"The most valuable aspect of Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks for me is its integration with AI detection, where we get to know the behavioral detection based on users, traffic patterns, and different services that we consume."
"It has pretty much everything we need and works well within the Palo Alto ecosystem."
"The solution allows us to make investigations. Other XDR solutions also provide similar capabilities but for investigation, Cortex XDR is better."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"These days it's machine-learning technology and behavior-based analytics features that make us more secure."
"We can visualize and control the activities in the environment from anywhere."
"Overall, the platform has strengthened our cybersecurity posture and increased operational efficiency for the security team."
"My advice for other organizations considering Cisco XDR is that it offers proactive security measures that are really very helpful."
"Cisco XDR is one of the most matured systems available."
"The features of Cisco XDR benefit my company since time is money. When outages happen and when a customer can't reach the internet, they get agitated. Therefore, the quicker we can mitigate an issue, our customers get happier in a quicker fashion."
"One of my favorite features of Cisco XDR is the automation tool, which saves a lot of time because we can craft these automations and workflows."
"Cisco XDR has definitely improved our security posture and our visualization, ensuring that we are protected and providing greater visibility for our SOC team."
"Cisco XDR is built primarily for enterprise endpoint security, integrated onto endpoints with logs integrated into SIEM, and it is used for security investigations, malware impact investigation, and tracking particular security incidents through integration of different logs, where endpoint logs are very important, providing detail about processes run by potential malware and any call-outs made to command and control."
"Cisco XDR is appreciated as a SaaS-based platform for its user-friendliness with simple management tools that are easy for configuration."
"The alerting to drive investigations and remediation has been its most valuable feature, plus the ability to quickly search multiple logs makes investigations easier."
"It gives all the advantages of a SIEM, however, using clever AI, it looks for patterns of behavior rather than just flooding me with all the alerts."
"The ability to ingest Office 365 log files, then process them into events and display them on a map."
"InsightIDR’s ability to process millions of transactions per day, and to notify me of the most critical ones, is priceless. InsightIDR has the alerts tuned, and has the ability to quickly drill down to determine the threat level."
"They can subscribe to Rapid7 because it is more valuable and delivers a greater return on investment."
"The most valuable features have to do with ease-of-use, as it is easy to check the events, investigate suspicious activities, and do forensic analysis, and the web interface is great — very useful and user-friendly."
"We were able to identify criminals attempting to login from China and put a stop on their IP locations."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR integrates well with other solutions. It's also easy to configure because Rapid7 InsightIDR has a lot of instructions posted on their website that customers can follow if they need to get the source log."
 

Cons

"Currently, we are monitoring all USB drives and ports but we would like to improve our device control capabilities."
"One thing that was missing was the integration part. Currently, they don't have out-of-box integration with IBM QRadar, or if they have the integration, the integration doesn't work well."
"The solution should enhance the ADR and reporting."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks can improve mobile integration to allow access to the console."
"If Palo Alto reduces the pricing slightly for their products, it would make them more scalable in markets such as India and globally for cybersecurity."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks could improve its user interface, which is more complicated compared to competitors such as SentinelOne."
"The dashboard could use some significant improvement, just making it more useful with more information. It has a limited amount of information right now. It is customizable, but I'd love to see a better out-of-box dashboard."
"It would be good if they could make an exception for applications. Sometimes, it can be a bit of a challenge to make exceptions for certain applications that have been used as rogue."
"I would say I got to stop beta testing myself."
"Workflows could definitely be easier to work with."
"They need to provide better pricing and bundle XDR licenses with products like Meraki solutions or Firepower Threat Defense."
"When we first started with Cisco XDR in August, everybody was having issues. There were three people in our organization, including me, who couldn't even log in to Cisco XDR."
"Cisco XDR could improve the UI customization experience."
"Cisco XDR is working well, but the solution could be more cost-effective for mid-sized and small organizations."
"Cisco XDR can be improved by addressing the upfront cost. Everything matters for us since we're small, mom and pop, so every dollar counts."
"I could not choose Cisco XDR a perfect score mainly because there is still room for improvement in usability and customization."
"The product allows us to make only 30 custom rules."
"It takes time for the product's support team to resolve issues, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Personally, I feel it would greatly benefit from more supported log sources."
"Rapid7's customer support is awful. They didn't respond at all."
"I'd like to see a mobile application included and some feature related to the generality of segregation for internal users that access the application."
"The interface for doing investigation needs to be enhanced with minor improvements that would make it more useful."
"They should add more configuration and security features to it."
"If we pitch Rapid7 InsightIDR against solutions such as SIEMs from Splunk or LogRhythm, it is not as customizable as a SIEM solution is."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the product is not very economical."
"Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is quite an expensive solution."
"I don't like that they have different types of licenses."
"It is "expensive" and flexible."
"The pricing is okay, although direct support can be expensive."
"Cortex XDR’s pricing is very reasonable."
"We didn't have to pay any additional fee for the cloud instance. It just came with the renewal, which was nice."
"It has a higher cost than other solutions, like CrowdStrike or Microsoft’s EDR tools, but it reduces the cost of our operations because it’s a new generation antivirus tool."
"The licensing of Cisco XDR is a bit complicated. The cost can depend on what it is, and the process can be a little complicated."
"​Accurately predict your licensing counts as this is a subscription based product.​"
"Rapid7 InsightIDR charges us based on the endpoints we connect to."
"Rapid7 InsightIDR's pricing is reasonable but we have challenges with the Minimum Order Quantity. It is not reasonable for customers who have less than one hundred devices. If they can reduce Minimum Order Quantity, it is good. You have to pay around 5000-6000 dollars per year for the product. The pricing includes maintenance and support costs."
"Licensing is straightforward. If, for some reason, you don’t meet the minimum licensing requirements, there is a third-party managed service that can help."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"​I am sure that there are cheaper products out there, but none that meet so many of our needs whilst maintaining stability and usability.​"
"The pricing and licensing are competitive."
"The team is very willing to work with companies. My suggestion is to call the Rapid7 sales department and see how they can help.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. Sentinel One
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. SentinelOne SentinelOne offers very detailed specifics with regard to risks or attacks. ...
Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions th...
How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco XDR?
The centralized visibility, automation, and reduction in investigation time have provided good operational value for ...
What needs improvement with Cisco XDR?
Cisco XDR could improve the UI customization experience. Some workflows still feel more complex than they need to be,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco XDR?
We mainly use Cisco XDR for centralized threat detection and incident investigation, especially for correlating endpo...
What SOC product do you recommend?
For tools I’d recommend: -SIEM- LogRhythm -SOAR- Palo Alto XSOAR Doing commercial w/o both (or at least an XDR) is a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightIDR?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been very positive; it is cost-effective and offers great ...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightIDR?
I would say there are two areas for improvement: the reporting dashboard that provides insights or reports weekly or ...
 

Also Known As

Cyvera, Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks Traps
No data available
InsightIDR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CBI Health Group, University Honda, VakifBank
Information Not Available
Liberty Wines, Pioneer Telephone, Visier
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco XDR vs. Rapid7 InsightIDR and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.